Coffee: Drink up, but watch the cream and sugar

December 19, 2012

News from Harvard schools, offices, and affiliates

A new study by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that coffee consumption lowered women’s risk of type 2 diabetes by eight percent. Men lowered their risk four percent by drinking regular coffee and seven percent for decaf.

The findings, which drew on data from the approximately 80,000 women and 40,000 men in the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, appear in the December 2012 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The study was one of several referenced in a November 30, 2012 Atlantic article to make the case that coffee is a healthy drink for most people—as long as it isn’t loaded down with cream and sugar.

Shilpa Bhupathiraju, a research fellow in HSPH’s Department of Nutrition and the study’s lead author, told The Atlantic that previous metabolic studies have shown that caffeine raises blood glucose levels and increases insulin resistance, but “those findings really didn’t translate into an increased risk for diabetes long-term.”

Also mentioned was a 2011 study by HSPH researchers that found that coffee may reduce the risk of lethal prostate cancer in men.